I’d hoped last week would be better for SoW development but it wasn’t as good as I would have liked. If you follow this blog you will know that work has been pretty demanding of my (over)time in the last few months. I’ve resolved to draw a stronger line between my personal and professional lives this year and I’ve been pretty successful overall, the project I’m working on currently has been tugging at me with it’s demands for weeks and I’ve been steadfastly ignoring the idea of putting in overtime. Sadly, this weekend I didn’t manage to fix an annoying bug by the end of Friday and decided I needed to put in some time Saturday to meet a deadline I’d promised. I’ll continue trying my hardest to avoid it in the future, I’m enjoying having a life again.

Anyway, enough about that, what did I do? Well, I put in some more programming work, much like last week, not particularly exciting to write about. I also did some collaborative writing with Vince of Iron Tower, you can check it out here, the idea was to create an interesting reference and discussion piece around the idea of spellcasting in RPGs. It was a bit of a tricky article to work on for various reasons, we went back and forth for ages before settling on structure we liked but I think it came out fairly decently in the end.

I also did some modelling work. In the spirit of ‘a change is as good as a rest’ I decided to take a break from modelling warehouses for a bit and work on…a ship model. I’m still in the modelling phase, haven’t started texture work, but people like pictures so here you go :

And that is that. ‘Till next week then.

Too amusing not to post.

Hitman and Tomb Raider : Great Western RPGs.

Also, there’s some stuff in there indicating the future of Final Fantasy is cut-scenes + quick time events. I suppose that is an upgrade from just cut-scenes.

(Apparently the misspelling of ‘resurrection’ is intentional, so don’t blame me)

I thought I’d post this up, I spotted it at GarageGames and was quite impressed by what this guy and his composer friend have been able to achieve. Watch the video. The plot looks fairly common, scientists combine ancient heiroglyphs and modern science to summon Horrible Beasties, and while the video is obviously ‘indie’, it is damn impressive for what is essentially one guy working on everything except the music.

LINK

Seeing things like this always inspires me. Keep up the good work, Cyril.

These days, hearing developers saying things which sound intelligent is becoming rarer and rarer. See the post before this.

But they’re saying all the right things in this interview, in my opinion. Inspired by the first game more than the second, proper inventory system, larger levels. And this especially :

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a prequel for several reasons. You do not need to be an old Deus Ex fan to appreciate the game – we have a new main character and supporting characters that you’ll encounter during the journey. At the same time, we felt Invisible War took the franchise too far into the future and became almost sci-fi, whereas the first game used the typical gritty Cyberpunk archetype we all loved, and we wanted to get back to that.

Second, in the original timeline of Deus Ex, there was an era where mechanically-augmented people started to flourish in society before the event of nano-augmented people. The distinction lies in the fact that nano-augmentations are invisible and the mechanical augmentations are not. We thought it would be an interesting thematic to explore from both a gameplay perspective (seeing how your character evolves) and from an ethical/moral perspective (the benefits & dangers of such a world where some can afford to get augmented while others can’t).

I really agree with the sentiment there. The first game was a self contained story, like Bioshock it made the point it was trying to make and the sequel felt completely unnecessary. However, going back and exploring the background of a story/setting you love, how it came to that point, that I’m totally down with. And the original did hint at interesting conflict with the original mechanically augmented humans, I think that is a good area to expand on.

Now, as a final comment : some people might be inclined to comment about the ‘Activate Sunglasses!’ thing in the trailer. You’re wearing nostalgia-tinted glasses there people. The original game had you walking around in sunglasses and a trenchcoat at night. Ok, they had some silly reason or another in the game, but let’s be honest here : It was really for that cool cyberpunk stylin’s. For the same reason that everyone in the Matrix movies felt the need to wear leather everywhere instead of comfortable, breathable fabrics. It’s no more cheesy than DX1.

There really aren’t enough :facepalms: in the world.

I’m sure I don’t have to point out the obvious stupidity to the readers of this blog, but just in case someone in the back is nodding in enthusiastic agreement with the slide…

Responding to the points in order :

1. Why? That statement does not make sense. If I establish a reliable fan base who continue to buy my products over many years and do so in numbers that cover costs and give me a bit of profit then I should be able to live comfortably on that indefinitely. See Jeff Vogel, who has been doing that for longer than Lionhead has existed as a studio.

Oh wait, I forgot. Mainstream dev house. Every game released requires twice the artist resources as the last one to ensure they stay ‘next gen!’ enough. I suppose static client numbers in the face of skyrocketing development costs is death then.

2. Yeah, it is…wait, no. World of Warcraft. Whether you like it as a game or not, if you take some time to examine the underlying mechanics you will notice it has as much complexity, if not more, than any hardcore RPG you’ve ever played. They do a really good job of easing players into the water but seriously, it’s as number-heavy as anything you’ve played. Roleplaying games aren’t just for the hardcore. Especially if you can tie in the social aspect…

3. Those things are very powerful in storytelling. I can’t remember ever seeing any in Fable though. Low-brow humor and lowest-common-denominator cliches, maybe…

4. The mind boggles. Perhaps in your tutorials you should speak slower and not use any big words Pete. Wouldn’t want to overwhelm the poor dears with all that complexity the Fable series is known for.

5. The Industry drives toward simplicity in the same way that the Titanic sailed toward that iceberg. I mean, I do believe simple games have their place in the market, no doubt. But imagine if book publishing worked this way? ‘Guys, sales to tweens are high right now. Make sure to only publish books that cater to that age group.’

I have more disposable income than I know what to do with. Gimme shit to spend it on, games industry. I will buy games at 5 times the rate of your piracy-ridden teenage customer-base, I promise. Scout’s honour.

6. I wonder what that number will look like in 10 years time? Do you think the mainstream will have twigged onto the diminishing returns concept by then or not? My bet’s on ‘No’.

Yes indeed. I dream of one day being a game developer so overwhelmingly successful that I have a fan base so obsessively rabid that the angle of the head of the preview art of a game model which will only ever be seen from above will generate a storm of internet controversy.

Mmmmm, such a wonderful dream, I can see it now, in my mind. From high atop my Black Throne, I shall bask in their howls of anguish, revel in their outrage. I will drink deep of their despair and in doing so I shall grow mighty indeed.

No seriously now, you have to read that link, it is deeply amusing. The guy analyzes each of the revealed D3 character models in turn, whether they are making eye contact and just how ‘badass’ their poses are. At least he eventually finds his way to the conclusion that the characters might be modeled so as to look best for the overhead view.

Personally, I quite like the oriental (without straying into anime, ugh) look they’re going for with the wizard, makes a change from the European style of wizards. The Diablo lore has generally been good with that, the Sorcerer from D1 was wicked, an exotic African/Middle East looking fella’ with spikes through his feet.

Next week : Blizzard fans argue over the merits of serif vs san-serif fonts in a Diablo game. Stay tuned.

Ah-hah! Gareth got off his lazy ass and decided to post an update this week! How splendid.

Eherm. Except it’s a programming update. Oh boy, that’s a guaranteed thrilling read, right there.

I read this last week on Coyote’s blog and thought ‘Hmmm, that sounds like a great idea! I’ve had a host of small, annoying issues bogging me down on the code front, what if I put all that aside and just jam at max speed all weekend, I wonder how much progress I could make?’ It seemed like a great idea and I was all fired up to do it. The goal was to throw together my existing code with some hacked-in workarounds to the issues I’m currently dealing with, build some city zones using the art I’ve already got + some quick and dirty prototype art and get some playable if ugly zones out of it over the weekend.

And then I did the opposite. Gah. Instead of quick and hacky, I ended up rewriting and refactoring code, cleaning up OLD hacks I’d made and carefully extending functionality. SoW is a long, rambling project, and any programmer reading this will understand those moments where you just feel the urge to redo and streamline things. So I made (some of) it all pretty. But it hardly fit the Game Jam spirit. I’ve got to be honest, I’m probably too invested at this point, I feel a strong urge to ‘do it right’. And any old code I see which looks ugly demands that I fix/clean it, upon my honor.

Oh well, I was quite productive, regardless, so I suppose the idea helped anyway.

But it sucks for you guys, because this is the only kind of screenshot I have for you :

Nick might find that interesting, but I don’t think anyone else cares.

In compensation for the lack of pretty pictures, I’ve decided to post up some of the SoW doodles from my sketchbook. Well, my latest sketchbook, I have reams of the things. Note, these are just doodles, stuff I do to capture an idea for myself, most are pretty crap. None of this is guaranteed to be in SoW, or look like what it would actually look like in the game. It’s just me thinking with a pencil. You can treat it like a game, try to guess what the hell I was trying to represent with that weird squiggle that makes no sense to anyone but me.

I’ve put them into a big montage file. I’d shrink it, but the drawings are already pretty bad, lose resolution and you may as well give up trying to figure out what they are. You can download the file here, it’s 8 Mb.

So imagine this, right.

You lead a development house which creates one of the most successful video games of all time. We’re talking Scrooge McDuck levels of moolah here.

And then, shortly before you’re due to receive royalty payments, you’re summoned to meet your bosses, summarily fired, and bouncers show up at your offices to clear out your stuff.

Sucks to be you, huh?

Now, in all fairness, it is possible that the execs in question did something dodgy and deserved the chop. But further information has come to light, let’s see if it offers any further hints at the true story :

Zampella/West say they had an agreement with Activision that IW would have sole creative responsibility for any Call of Duty game set post-Vietnam or carrying the Modern Warfare moniker, which in turn guaranteed them royalty payments from the series. It’s not specified what Activision have done to breach that agreement (if indeed they have), but it’s possibly related to the rumoured Nam-set Treyarch COD due later this year, and to the newly-revealed COD action-adventure (i.e. not an FPS), to be handled by Sledgehammer Studios.

So you have a very successful dev house who claims rights to all further titles developed under a very successful IP. Odds are that all that success Infinity Ward is swimming in is going to lead to them demanding a greater share of the pie from future CoD games. That’s pie Activision is slavering over, no doubt. Slavering so hard they’ve opened up a specific division devoted solely to exploiting the CoD franchise. But this pesky IP rights thing is standing in the way of them milking the franchise for every last penny by making spin-off titles and farming out the labour to studios who willing to work for a smaller cut of the pie.

So what’s an executive to do? Cut off the head of your opponent and watch the body fall. I wonder if one of the consequences of this breach of contract by IW is that Activision gets all rights to the CoD IP?

The whole situation is delicious. And I don’t mean because of all this talk of pie. Delicious with irony.

It’s an Indie life for me, boy-o. Sailing the high seas, your fate left solely to your own skills and the whim of the seas, beholden to no master. Free.

I was reading this piece on how Activision shut down a fan project based on an IP it now owned, and it struck me how stupid the indie developers were.

No seriously. Ok, so you liked King’s Quest. You liked it a whole hell of a lot. Enough to spend 8 years (yeah, we’ll come back to the 8 years thing) working on a project based off of it. I get that, it’s cool, we’re all gamers here, we get fanboyism. I lovingly stroke my copy of Thief 2 every night before bed, so I’m hardly one to judge.

But seriously, why use the exact IP? Why not make one of those ‘spiritual sequels’ the cool kids talk about? Like how Bioshock was supposed to be the ‘spiritual sequel’ to System Shock (it mostly failed at that, but let’s not go there now). How many of these fan homage projects have been shut down now? A gazillion? Are we not learning mammals? Do we fail to see the pattern laid down before us?

Why not say ‘I loved that game, lets get together and make something which captures the soul of it, if not every superficial detail’.

Take a look at this screenshot for Age of Decadence :

Anyone want to take a guess as to who really, really liked Fallout? That’s how you do this type of thing lads.

Also, as someone who has been working hard on a game of my own for years (too many years), I find it really difficult to believe that they’d been working hard for 8 years and, faced with this speedbump, didn’t simply re-brand their project and carry on. To give up 8 years of hard toil over something so easily remedied is… ridiculous. A cynical soul might be inclined to believe that this is one of those indie projects that was never really going to get anywhere anyway and the slight bump to their morale caused them to decide to pack it in. But there are no cynics around here, noooooooo.

Now, there are people who are up in arms about Activision protecting their IP here. The little guy, they shout, the little guy is being trampled on by The Man! Get over it. This is the information age, information and non-tangibles like brands are extremely valuable. Now, there are some common arguments thrown by disgruntled fans in these situations. Let me address them.

1. “But they haven’t made a King’s Quest game in ages!”

Yeah, and how long has it been since the A-Team tv show? Guess what is coming to movie theaters soon? I have little doubt it will make a profit. If some group are willing to spend years making a homage project, and its cancellation disappoints people across the internet, the brand still has dollar value.

2. “Oh, but what would it hurt a big company to make a fan project?”

Two things. Firstly, if you don’t actively protect your IP, you lose it. So they can’t just leave small projects to do as they will, they have to keep tight control. And managing a contract with a small group of fans is a hassle which really may not be worth it to a big company. Such is life.

Secondly, you could damage their brand value. Lets say Disney allows a fan to make their own Mickey Mouse movie. But the fan is a bit of an avant garde artiste type, and decides to portray Mickey as a child molesting alcoholic. It’s a silly, over the top example but the point stands. If you own a brand of some value, you have a right to keep control of the works that are released bearing that brand. Again, if Ubisoft don’t feel like managing some fan project, it’s not worth their trouble.

3. “Art is all about sharing ideas! Cultural exchange! You’re squashing creativity, man!”

Oh, grow up. It’s a fantasy adventure game, I hardly think the world’s pool of creative inspiration will dry up without the use of a brand title. I never played King’s Quest, lets see what wikipedia says :

Much of King’s Quest was inspired by fairy tales, which designer Roberta Williams loved reading.[7] Many creatures, characters and situations from mythology, fairy tales, and folklore are encountered within the world of King’s Quest. A Minotaur, Pan, Pandora, Charon, Cupid, Ceres, Druids, Harpies, Oracles, Neptune, Medusa, The Fates and the Graeae appear in various games in the series. In general, the mythology of the King’s Quest world is derived from that of the Ancient Greeks, Romans, and Celts.

Well mercy be, a fantasy world inspired by fairy tales, mythology and folklore! However will we manage without directly drawing from the King’s Quest IP? They’re killing Art man, killing it. Those evil Corporations. With their faceless suits and power-crazy Marketing Departments.

Here, let me help you guys with a new name :

Generic Fantasy Adventures : The Adventuring

I know what you’re thinking : Genius. You can use it free of charge. I’ll put it out under the creative commons license, or whatever.

4. “A fan project is like free advertising!”

Do you naive persons have any idea how much money is spent attempting to craft the right advertising message for clients? “King’s Quest : Another One, but Unpolished and Amateur” is hardly an alluring advertising prospect. I know, I know. Those power-crazy Marketing Departments. What can you do, hey?

So my fellow indies and enthusiasts, I leave you with this plea :

Please. Don’t be stupid. Create your own IP. Hell, it’s one of the few advantages to being an indie, the chance to create, grow and own your own IP.